[vtk-developers] RE: Shaders and vtk

[Gary J. Templet]

Hi,

I'm working on an interface that allows VTK to use Cg or GLSL shaders.
With VTK's current mappers, a hardware shader will have access to four
vertex attributes and one texture map. Ken's (Moreland) Painter classes
can be extended to allow access to all available vertex attributes, but
I'm not sure how to address the texture map issue.

My work focuses on on the shader mechanics.Basically, vtk will read an
XML description of the shader's interface and a few new classes will
handle loading, compiling, installing, initializing variables, etc.

The Cg interface is working well and I've started working on GLSL
interface classes since NVidia released their latest drives that support
OpenGL 2.0. My goal is to check this into VTK proper in the next few
weeks once the GLSL interface is more solid and I have more robust tests
to verify that things are working as they should.

I'm glad to see there's interest in the VTK community in using hardware
shaders. I'll keep the developers list posted as to the progess.

Thanks,
Gary



On Mon, 2005-06-20 at 07:14, Moreland, Kenneth wrote:
> John,
> 
> After discussing the painters with the folks at Kitware, Ken Martin had
> several changes he wanted made before they should be added to VTK
> proper.  Unfortunately, I have not been able to make time for these
> changes yet.
> 
> As far as the Cg and GLSL support, Gary Templet has been working on
> that.  You will have to ask him on the current status of that.
> 
> -Ken
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: John Biddiscombe [mailto:biddisco at cscs.ch] 
> > Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 1:14 AM
> > To: John Biddiscombe
> > Cc: Moreland, Kenneth; VTK Developers
> > Subject: Shaders and vtk
> > 
> > Regarding a posting from some time ago, but I can't find the 
> > one that mentioned vtkPainter etc
> > 
> > >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Moreland, Kenneth" 
> > >> <kmorel at sandia.gov>
> > >> Subject: RE: [vtk-developers] GL Extension Wrangler library
> > >
> > This week, I'm going to start work on some fragment and 
> > vertex shaders for vtk. I know that the vtkPainter + other 
> > mapper classes included some Cg and GLSL support. I don't 
> > know what the their status is, but if there are any plans to 
> > put them in vtk please let me know.
> > 
> > [Specifically I'm planning on putting in some refraction 
> > effects on some SPH (Smooth particle hydrodyanics) 
> > simulations to give some realistic watery effects. I've been 
> > using vtkPolyDataPointSpriteMapper to do fast sphere 
> > renderings and will extend this to handle a bunch of new 
> > capabilities. I welcome and feedback on the subject. - it'd 
> > be nice to also render water surfaces/contours from CFD this way]
> > 
> > cheers
> > 
> > JB
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
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